--- "Alex R." <alex756(a)nyc.rr.com> wrote:
This is not a copyright issue. If someone places
material on Wikipedia, they
do so, they have the right to do so and as long as
that information is not
defamatory or breaking any laws there should be no
prohibition against
posting any such information. The persons posting
information is responsible
for posting it, not the volunteers nor Jimbo. It is
the person who has
posted the information who is responsible for it,
not the OSP, this seems to
be the case law that you and I have been reviewing
lately James.
Should'nt WP take an stand and defend its users from
prosecution? There is a movement now dealing with
security issues (since it was recently shown how
invasive profiling can be done with hacking cookies
and web server logs) that websites simply wipe their
ip server logs. (There generally is no good reason not
to) but does WP? And would a legal defense require WP
to keep these logs?
What I mean is: since WP enables the publishing of
stuff --
and then says "this user who did the posting is
responsible, for any infringement not us" (forgeting
about shielding the user for now) -- is WP under some
obligation to keep its ip logs just in case, to
deflect liability? If these are insufficient-- ( in
the case that some violators may use decent enough
proxies) -- might a court say that WP (since its in
the business of "publishing") must also be in the
business of ID-ing its "users" -- and not simply give
them free reign to pubish?
This was kind of the argument against the centralized
filesharing hubs (ie Napster) wasnt it? In this case,
might WP run into an eventuality where its existence
as a "Wiki" is a simple contradiction to the
responsibilities demanded by US legal liability?
~S~
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